This is the Dead Land
by AliBlack
Summary: She is a coward. She has never done a damn heroic thing in her life. Hell, you could say she'd lived a very tiny, self-centered existence until now. Until the Ferryman carried her. Until she had to be brave.
1. Prologue

**Prologue**

_This is the dead land_

_This is cactus land_

_Here the stone images_

_Are raised, here they receive_

_The supplication of a dead man's hand_

_Under the twinkle of a fading star._

_Is it like this_

_In death's other kingdom_

_Waking alone_

_At the hour when we are_

_Trembling with tenderness_

_Lips that would kiss_

_Form prayers to broken stone._

T.S. Eliot – The Hollow Men

xxx

_There's a big, big man in the room ahead. Not a man. Too tall. Too wide. _

_Three shots with the pistol. (Daddy, help.) Much too scared. What do I do? Sitting here in the dark subway tunnels, the walls damp and crumbling. Silence and confusion. _

xxx

"Truth is, I need someone like you." Her voice was quiet still, but echoed in the antechamber of the museum. It was just the two of them, the room lit mostly by light cast off by burning barrels and the device strapped to her wrist. Between words, the only things to be heard were the crackle of fire and a whisper of a groan from the leather he wore.

He didn't respond, only looked back at her. For a long moment, there was only the quiet buzz of silence.

"I'm not cut out for this kind of world," her small voice continued, her eyes moving downward. "And... yet there's no going back." Her hand slid into her jacket, fingering the aged document that had been tucked away inside. "It makes me ill... Mr. Charon, to have done this. If I had been afforded the luxury, I would be content to bunk down and cower in the first settlement I found, but there are things I must do out here in this war zone." She pulled her hand out and hugged her jacket closer, shivering. "For that reason, I, regretfully, must ask your permission for you to accompany me out into the wasteland."

The ghoul licked his lips, then cleared his throat. "Permission?"

"I can't in clear conscience force you to put your life on the line for me," she said. "Not just because I'm weak." In the dim light, and because she was unfamiliar with ghouls, she could not read his expression.

"The contract entitles you to my services." His voice was strained, raspy. "There is no need for permission."

The young woman waited, hoping for more out of him, but there was nothing. "I'm not that kind of person." She bit her thumbnail. "I need to hear it." His eyes narrowed; confused, perhaps. "I'm choosing to throw myself into a dangerous world; I can't choose that fate for you. Especially when you can't just walk away." Quietly, though, she let slip the word's floating around her mind, "_But I don't want to die..._" yet it was so quiet she didn't think he heard. But he didn't ask her to repeat herself so perhaps he did.

"You are my employer," he said, simply, as if that were an obvious answer.

"And if this is not your will, I'll go back inside and sign your contract over to Winthrop. It's better than a lifetime of guilt."

The ghoul stared at her for a long moment, perhaps searching her eyes for something. "If you're in such a hurry, let's get going."

The young woman adjusted her pack, dejected. "Fine. But if you ever change your mind, please tell me, and I'll hand your contract to anyone of your choice; no questions asked."

She looked at the door.

"I just need a little time," she near-whispered. "I'm trying to find someone."

* * *

_A/N: Screw it. I'm posting this. I've been plugging away at this for over a year and I'm going to start posting finished or not. _

_I figure it's become par for the vaultie to fly her hero flag so I wanted to back it up a bit and work on one that felt a little more rounded. If you're burnt out on the main plotline, perhaps this is not your cup of tea, but I do wing most of the dialogue rather than copy and paste from the game._

_Expect weekly-ish updates, sweet readers. _


	2. Book One: I

**Book One: Coward_  
_**

_What is health? We must all die sometime.  
Whatever it is, out there_

_in the woods, that begins to seem like_  
_a species of madness, we survive as we can:_  
_the hooked-up, the humdrum, the brief, tragic_  
_wonder of being at all..._

Amy Clampitt – A Whippoorwill in the Woods

xxx

**I**

xxx

_Dark corridors and shadows. Flickering, creeping, setting to thrust up and attack. Some kind of growl groan, crackle, and nothing but a whimper and a tear in response. _

_Don't want to leave. Don't want to move. Don't want to come out from hiding. Something nearby is breathing. _

xxx

Charon watched the girl awake with a jolt, her eyes opening wide.

"What...!" she gasped, then took a breath, closing her eyes again. "Not used to it," she muttered. "Someone else nearby. The feeling of being watched; it gave me a bad feeling."

Charon adjusted his feet, stretching to stave off the growing numbness in his legs. He had constructed a fire to heat the small office off the subway line, and barricaded the door to block off the light. "Keep your voice down."

"I know," she whispered, eyes closed. "Trust me, I don't want anything coming near me down here." Her words were becoming barely audible, as she starting sinking back into sleep. "Just haven't slept well. Don't sleep well; bad dreams. Bad... feelings."

"You're old enough to be used to this by now," Charon said, pulling the scrap blanket closer around himself and adjusting the position of his shotgun across his lap.

Her eyes opened a bit, and her blanket slid off the device on her wrist, coating the room in the dull green glow. She turned down the brightness. "Mr. Charon, I didn't even know a world like this existed until a week ago. I've been locked inside a vault all my life."

He tossed a few more scraps into the fire, thinking. "The one outside Megaton?"

"I'm terrified every moment of my life," she said after nodding. "I'm not trained for this world." She cast her eyes down. "I'm terrified of the memory of my best friend lying dead on the med lab floor, and being chased out of the only home I knew with the sound of gunfire. I'm terrified of not waking up to find this has all been a nightmare." She rubbed at her tired eyes. "But I can't let that stop me. I have to find my father. He's the only thing that can make this bearable."

Neither spoke, and soon Charon could hear the measured sound of her breathing as she drifted back to fitful sleep.


	3. Book One: II

**II**

xxx

_The sound of wailing. Alarms. The scent of charred things and ashes. Where to go. What to do. Do I weep? Do I run?_

_I don't want to. I don't want to. I want to wake up from this nightmare._

xxx

"Do you know where we are? How far it is?"

"Not too long. One more stop."

"Not too long," she muttered. "Not too long will be when I see Megaton's walls."

The two crept through the subway tunnels, their whispered voices not carrying far. She had what he would call the least used pistol he had ever seen, and a very old looking rifle strapped under her pack.

"Mr. Charon?"

"Would you please stop calling me that?" he said. "It's not my surname. I don't have one."

"How do you not have one?" she asked.

"Suppose I did at one point. Don't know it."

"Stupid question, I guess," she said. "I can see how a world like this makes it easy to leave things in the past." The vault girl scratched at her forearm. "It's just a little strange. It feels too informal."

Charon straightened his shoulders. "Do you mean for our arrangement to be more formal than it currently is?"

"No," she said, startled. "I don't particularly want it to be, I just… feel like I should show respect. It's adopting a tone that is more personal than should be for how long I've known you; some kind of semblance of social politeness." She paused. "Do you understand?"

He shrugged.

"I'm sorry," she said. "I didn't mean to offend you."

"You can't," Charon said. "You could pretty much do whatever you wanted to me and there's nothing I could do about it."

He turned back to look at her and she gave him a long, hard stare. "Why on earth would I do anything cruel to you?"


	4. Book One: III

**III**

xxx

_Silence. Silence. There's no one around, no footsteps echoing in corridors. Just the empty house. No friend. No ally. _

_No one. Just me. _

xxx

It was a very empty house. So far the only substantial things in it were the bed, sofa, and desk upstairs, along with a few lanterns and storage lockers. On the downstairs bookshelf was a folded up vault jumpsuit. It had dirt on it, but it was fresh, not the long ground-in dust from years of use in the wastes.

She set her bag by the door and stepped inside to let him by. "It's not much, but it's…" she trailed off. "Something like a home. Better than the subway tunnels, that's for damn sure." The girl took him upstairs and showed him the spare room. "I think we can fix up this room for you. You can set up your things as you like. You…" she paused. "You have things, right?"

Charon reached over his back and touched his shotgun.

"Oh." She shuffled over to her room. "Well, I hope that changes."

Charon shrugged.

"Why don't you... well, this is my room, but, I mean," she sighed, brushing a hand over the top of her head. "You're much too tall to take the sofa comfortably. So why don't you take my bed for now, I'll sleep on the sofa, and we'll see about getting a bed in here for you soon, hmm?" She nodded once she was finished.

Charon stared. "As long as that is what you wish."

The vault girl scrunched up her nose and crossed her arms, then nodded. "I'm going to do some trade at the supply. Would you like anything?"

"I require sustenance and ammo, and whatever you would like to outfit me with. That is all."

"Anything that you _want_, though?" she asked. "Like, _want_."

Charon shook his head.

She turned to go downstairs. "Alright, well, just let me know if you change your mind. Make yourself comfortable in the meantime. There's a bit of food in the fridge and some books downstairs. What's mine is yours, mister…. I mean, Charon."

Downstairs, she lifted her bag onto the bookshelf and began to unpack it. The ammo cartridges were stuffed in the side pockets and handfuls of bullets had fallen down to the bottom of the pack. She made a pile of crushed cigarette packs and another for ammunition calibers she didn't use. The idea of picking up discarded items to use as trade was still a very strange concept to her. She might have picked up spare bolts and scrap for herself for repair, but she had been told that cigarettes are light to carry and go a fair way toward things she needed. The finiteness of certain things was still something she was having trouble conceptualizing.

On the shelf, she noticed, she had left her sketch pad and a handful of photos before leaving town last. Also on the shelf, her Grognak the Barbarian comic collection – issues three through seven, eleven, and twenty-four. She'd read all those in between but ten. It was the consensus that there was not an issue ten in the vault since no one had ever seen or read it.

What kind of silly things these were when she thought about it. That, she thought, that was what she packs away in her bag when she has two minutes to decide what to bring into exile with her. Photos, a comic collection, her tool bag, her chipped coffee mug with the RobCo logo on the side.

Silly things. Of course, if you'd told her a jar of discarded bottlecaps was going to be more worth having than her comics, she'd have laughed. Hell, you could use a damn comic as trade in the vault, at least.

She left and returned in an hour with a pocket of caps, ammunition, a new(ish) pillow, a blanket, and a crate of water and cola.


	5. Book One: IV

_Turning and turning in the widening gyre_

_The falcon cannot hear the falconer;_

_Things fall apart; the centre cannot hold;_

_Mere anarchy is loosed upon the world,_

_The blood-dimmed tide is loosed, and everywhere_

_The ceremony of innocence is drowned;_

W.B. Yeats - The Second Coming

xxx

**IV**

xxx

_Comfortable. So comfortable. A safe place. People who wouldn't dream of harming me. Sleeping peaceful, peaceful._

_Then, the next minute – a snap of fingers, wave of hand, and Tom has two bullets in his skull. _

xxx

"Do you even know how to strip a gun?" Charon asked. The girl shrugged. "Before we're back out there, I'm gonna have to show you how." The idea of having an untrained gun at his back did not sit well with him. He placed his shotgun on her desk, and went to pull up a chair for himself.

As he got comfortable, the young woman looked at the weapon for a moment, before taking it up in her hands and deftly disassembled it with only a few pauses to study the workings. She laid the parts out in a deliberate pattern on the table and looked to him when she was done.

Charon observed with mild surprise. "Put it back together," he said after a beat, his curiosity peaked.

She took a moment to study her pattern, then pieced the gun back together. He gave a little '_hmm_' sound when she was finished. She smiled, then fiddled with the device on her wrist, turning off the soft crackle of the radio station that had gone dead again. After a moment, she grabbed her bag and began to sift through.

"Ever take that thing off your arm?" Charon asked, watching as she unloaded parts onto her desk. Random odds and ends – screws, nuts, scrap.

"What? My Pip-boy?" She brushed her hand over it. "Not often. I mean, wasn't too long ago they didn't come off at all. Hell of a job getting them off the… previous owners when they were through with them."

"Dead?"

"Yeah, dead." She shrugged. "Limited supply, you know." She carefully sorted the small bits into separate tin cans. "It took us a few months of searching through the programming, and a few spare units to figure out how to break it down, but we were able to find the coding and mechanism to release the biometric seal. See?" She fiddled with a few knobs and buttons before a quiet clack sound loosened the device and she was able to slip it off her wrist. "Spent near ten years of my life having it on constantly so it's a little disconcerting having it away for too long."

"Us?" he asked, half-curious.

"The engineering team. Maintenance, I mean too. We were a little like the same. I kind of floated." She shrugged, fitting it back on and engaging the seal again. "Some of the engineers were a little too stuck up to bother with the grease monkeys. I was an unofficial assistant on the maintenance level before I got assigned to the engineering team – always liked to help fix things. They were understaffed, under-appreciated. Felt like I was betraying them getting slotted into the Brains."

The vault girl laughed a little laugh. "That's what we called them – the engineers. They called us the Tools. A bit awkward when I got my work assignment after that." She bit her thumbnail for a moment. There seemed to be grease in all the little lines and creases on her knuckles and fingers. "I'm talking too much. Sorry. It's hard to… imagine it's over. This all seems like a long, terrible dream."

Charon was silent.

She adjusted the positions of the cans just slightly, looking for something to fidget with. "Not very clever names now that I think about it, anyway."

"So you can fix things, then?" the ghoul asked. "Is that it?"

At his question, she perked up, nodding enthusiastically. "Yeah, I've done a ton of repair and modification. Design too, when the inspiration strikes." She rested her hands on her hips, looking down at the parts on her desk. "I guess I can be useful from time to time."

"Ever use a gun before?"

The young woman nodded. "Kind of. Had a BB gun growing up, but it's not much use out here." She rested her hand on his shotgun. "Need a little more stopping power, I guess."

When Charon reached over to take his weapon back, she flinched back away from him instinctively. The ghoul cleared his throat and took his weapon, moving more gently to indicate he meant no harm.

"I'm sorry," she said, rubbing the bridge of her nose uncomfortably. "I just – "

"I know," Charon said.

The girl looked at him with a genuine empathy in her eyes. "No," she said forcefully. "I didn't mean it like that. If you're talking about being a... a ghoul, that is." She sat on her desk and sighed. "Truth is," she said in a meek whisper. "I still can't get that image out of my head. The one of you plastering the walls with Ahzrukhal's brains." Her eyes turned up to his. "You gonna do that to me?"

Charon sensed a real flicker of terror in her eyes, not that kind of half-believing wondering in her tone of voice. "Are you going to give me a reason?"

"I can't say I truly know what counts as 'a reason' to you."

"Thus far," he said. "I don't plan on it." With that, he stood and left the room.


	6. Book One: V

**V**

xxx

_This is why cold steel is the only true comfort._

xxx

During the night, Charon was woken by the pressing need of his bladder. He found the light on outside the room, and peeking out, saw the girl hunched over the desk overlooking the bottom floor, working on some kind of device. Parts of a robot – looked like a Mr. Handy model.

Her fingers were short but dexterous. The tiny parts of the mechanism she worked over were sprawled across the desk, however the longer you watched her, the more you might believe that she had a method to the pattern. The frown on her face could easily be mistaken for frustration, but was perhaps merely an intense focus on the workings before her, since she was hunched over so far that her nose may, not with too much difficulty, have brushed the desk.

Her hair was unbrushed and tied back in a tight bunch away from her workings. Her fingernails were trimmed short but still had black under them. The skin under her eyes was swollen and dark. Briefly, he noted, he'd never looked at her for this long.

Charon stepped out of the room, pulling the curtain hung as a makeshift doorway back into place, and the young woman looked up at him.

"Gotta take a piss," he muttered.

The young woman gave him brief directions to the town bathroom, and went back to her work.


	7. Book One: VI

_If it keeps on rainin', levee's goin' to break,  
If it keeps on rainin', levee's goin' to break,  
When the levee breaks I'll have no place to stay._

_Don't it make you feel bad_  
_When you're tryin' to find your way home,_  
_You don't know which way to go?_

Led Zeppelin "When the Levee Breaks"

xxx

**VI**

xxx

_The sound of creaking, decaying wood is far from the familiar groan of thick metal under high pressure. You can feel safe enclosed in steel. Not so much in the flaking, molding timber._

xxx

She kicked her boot at the molding along the base of the wall, knocking off paint and splinters. The old, pre-war house was just about falling down around them.

"I dunno," she said, like she said to all of the beds they'd seen thus far. Too rusted, too old, too something. She liked the mattress from the house down the road and couldn't find a frame she was satisfied with.

"A bed's a bed," Charon mumbled. "It's not like you're the one who's gonna be sleeping on it." He picked up the edge of the mattress to examine the frame underneath. "How often are we going to be in Megaton anyway? Thought you said you were looking for someone."

She cleared her throat. "I guess you're right."

Charon let the mattress fall from his hand and it scattered dust about the room.

The girl shrugged. "I think you'll appreciate it once it's there though."

Charon didn't respond. After a time, she accepted the one they were looking at. She pulled the nails from the wood frame, dissembled it, and the two of them carried the bundles back to her house to rebuild. The mattress had been a little more cumbersome.

That night, Charon didn't say anything to her about it, but found his bed – complete with the pillow and blanket she had given him – to be quite comfortable.

* * *

A/N: I now have a tumblr, so if you're interested in my musing / ranting / fic updates and commentary, please follow me. Link in my profile.


	8. Book One: VII

**VII**

xxx

_They all left you. Mom. Dad. _Shutup._ The vault kicked you on your ass and never thought twice. Everyone eventually, just wait..._

xxx

It was late and quiet when Charon came from his room, but he heard an unfamiliar voice coming from hers. He almost turned to leave the shack instinctively, hearing a male in her house, but quickly realized it was coming from her Pip-Boy, a recording. The girl had left the curtain to her room drawn open, and she was sitting at her desk, playing with the dials. Charon stood frozen for a moment, looking at the way she sat, her back to him, a small photograph propped up against a bottle of wine half-gone.

She didn't hear him approach, it seemed, for she was far too focused on the device on her wrist and the voice emanating from it.

"_...Goodbye... I love you."_

He watched her for a moment, rewinding and playing the last over and over.

"_...Goodbye... I love you."_

The soft whir of the data rewinding.

"_...Goodbye... I love you."_

Whir.

"_...I love you."_

The young woman suddenly realized Charon was watching and switched the recording off, wiping at her cheek quickly before speaking. "Was there something you needed, Charon?" Her voice was hoarse. She grabbed the photo before he saw what it was and set it face down.

He shook his head. "Just seeing if you were asleep."

"Are you sure?" She gave a very strained smile. "If there's anything you need, all you have to do is ask." Her eyes locked to his and a pervasive sadness hid somewhere in them, but her tone was genuine. "I want to make sure you're happy here."

Though it threw him just how ardent she sounded, he simply asked, "Was that who you're looking for?"

The girl looked down at her hands. She nodded and when she spoke, it was in a whisper. "My father is somewhere out here. He's the only person I have." She gave a wry laugh. "And I don't exactly have him, do I?" Her hands clenched into fists.

Charon stayed quiet.

"Um." She tilted the wine bottle to measure how much was left. Her voice was quiet. "We'll leave the day after tomorrow."

* * *

_A/N: Remember to follow my author tumblr page, link in profile. I talk to myself and stuff. It's cool._


	9. Book One: VIII

**VIII**

xxx

_Blood on a dead, cold skin. Harsh lights and alarms framing strewn-about articles that have always been in a neat, tidy place as long as I can remember. The sick, sugary scent of charred Radroach, death, and vomit. Nothing I can do, nothing I can do, nothing to undo it. The cold weight of a pistol, callous and unfamiliar. It's not real; just a nightmare, just a nightmare, just a nightmare..._

xxx

He heard her awake with a strangled scream, something that wasn't so uncommon that he wasn't getting used to it. It was often enough to stir him from sleep, but only to listen for the cries to quiet and the creaks and groans of a rusty bedframe as she settled back to sleep. She never really told him what it was that plagued her mind so badly that she relived it in her dreams any deeper than 'bad memories' or 'not fit for a world like this.'

The sun had already begun to peek in through the holes in the shack's walls so Charon rose and refastened the buckles on his armor. He looked into her room where she was sitting up on the edge of bed and holding her head in her hands. The girl looked up when she sensed his presence, and sighed.

Charon grunted. "Nightmare?"

She stretched until there was a soft popping sound from her spine. "If my dreams weren't nightmares, I'd wonder if they weren't my reality – my waking up from this nightmare, where you ferry me across to the land of the dead."

"Still leaving today?"

The girl nodded.

"Where to?"

"GNR station," she said. "Where I was headed before I overshot the tunnels and ended up in Underworld."

Charon crossed his arms. "Why didn't we go straight there before?"

She shook her head. "I dunno. I guess I just panicked and wanted to run. Backtrack as far as I could go and not have to face it any longer." The girl sighed again. "Running is the only thing I've done out here." The girl shook her head again and rose from the bed.

She made a strong black coffee in a dinged-up percolator that she'd found in one of the houses in Springvale. The grounds she'd traded a clip full of rifle ammo for, and this morning she'd bartered a pack of smokes for a pouch of squirrel jerky and a couple packs of Dandy Boy apples that would be their breakfast.

Charon watched as the girl bit into the meat sheepishly at first, but choked it down without complaint.

"How long do you think it'll be?" she asked quietly.

The ghoul shrugged. "Maybe less than a day if we make good time."

The girl laced her vest, picked from a crate of miscellaneous clothing at the supply. It was boiled leather, hardened and becoming brittle at the edges, and had not been made for her so it buckled in certain places and shifted in others. It was better than the loose, oversized shirt, but would not hold up to gunfire.

Charon shook his head at her. The vault girl was a hot mess, and he wondered how long she'd last before the next wasteland asshole held his contract. She had wrapped the paper in a cloth scrap and tucked it into the misshapen vest. The girl paled as they left the gate. It wouldn't be long, Charon thought.


	10. Book One: IX

_What are the roots that clutch, what branches grow_

_Out of this stony rubbish? Son of man_

_You cannot say, or guess, for you know only_

_A heap of broken images, where the sun beats_

_And the dead tree gives no shelter, the cricket no relief,_

_And the dry stone no sound of water._

T.S. Eliot – The Waste Land

xxx

**IX**

_Soft shuffle, scuttle sounds of tiny things in large, silent rooms. Freeze. Was that noise from me?_

xxx

The girl searched slowly and meticulously through the nooks along the subway line, as Charon hovered nearby listening for disturbances. Her dirty fingers sifted through drawers and lockers picking out lone caps and shoving them in her pockets, inspecting a bent cigarette before slipping it into a half-full pack, grabbing up any loose bullet she could see.

"Is each little object of such value we must stake our lives on their collection?" Charon whispered to the girl when she'd finally decided the latest room was picked clean.

"Would you like to keep eating?" she whispered back, then after a moment, continued. "How do you think I payed for your contract?"

After a long journey through the tunnels, the trip drawn out by the girl's searching eyes and probing fingers, they approached the exit they had been looking for. She could see better in here, Charon thought. Her eyes were adept at finding nooks and crannies in the uniform, repetitive underground construction, sensing things out of place, seeming to be able to sort the useless junk from the bits of treasure hidden amongst the subway tunnels.

"Here." Charon pointed to a faded sign. "_GNR outpost_," he read. "That what you're looking for?"

"I guess it must be." The girl shook her head. "I must have been too panicked to notice it and walked right by last time." She scratched her head, then pointed. "Yeah, see?" She ran her thumb over a patch of rust-colored, dried blood smeared on the concrete wall, and then gripped her upper arm. "Must've been sliding along the wall after I hurt myself. I remember that."

"What is this?" She traced the symbol with her forefinger.

"Brotherhood." He looked down at her. "Like the ones outside the monument."

The girl's brow tightened in thought. "Didn't ask many questions there. What do they do?"

Charon shrugged. "Take shots at your feet and pretend they thought you were feral." The girl gave him a wide-eyed look of shock. "They're para-military. Trying to control the Super Mutant population or something."

"Are we going to have to... fight them?" Her face was pallid again.

"No," the ghoul replied. "They like you smoothskins."

It wasn't long before they found the gated subway exit.

"We should stop for the night," Charon said, peeking into a small office off the path. "We'll have to cross through a couple blocks of city and it's not a good idea to do it drowsy."

The girl looked up at him for a moment, swallowing hard. Her face seemed to pale. "O-okay."


	11. Book One: X

**X**

xxx

_Sinking, sinking, sinking... falling! Open eyes. Just a jolt. Harmless jolt. _

xxx

After a small meal of prepackaged foods, the vault girl sat against the wall, fiddling with her wrist device. For many minutes there was nothing but different pitches of static.

"I got it," she said, turning the volume down so it was just barely audible. "I'm getting a signal from GNR."

Together, they listened for a time._ "Got some great news out of the town of Megaton: turns out the live atomic bomb in the town center has finally been deep-sixed for good by that little one-oh-one gal! Hey one-oh-one, next time you're in the neighborhood, pop into the studio - ol' Three Dog's toaster's been on the fritz."_

Her brow furled. "He knows about me?" she whispered. "How? I'm just..." she trailed off and sat in thought for a moment. "He must hear about everything out here."

After a time, she turned the radio off, and the vault girl had curled herself up in the corner, pencil and sketchpad in hand, her nose very close to the page. Charon closed his eyes, but found himself not in want of sleep. He listened to the sound of her pencil quietly scratching against the paper. Maybe an hour later, she set the pad down and drifted off to sleep.

Charon grew tired soon after, and was awoken by her restless noises only twice during the night.


	12. Book One: XI

**XI**

xxx

_This is only dirt. This is only crumbling concrete. Nothing to fear. Just things._

_One step, then another. Nothing to fear. Just actions._

xxx

They were crouched on the stairwell that led up to the street from the metro. The girl pulled the rifle from her back and clutched it close. Charon had never seen her use the rifle that had always been strapped beneath her pack. She'd said the ammo was rare.

"Where's your ammo?" he whispered.

"The extra? In my bag. Side pocket."

The ghoul shook his head. "You could use an ammo belt or something useful like that. Pistol?" She patted her hip. He knew her magazines were in the side pocket as well. "Count your shots, right?"

She nodded. It did nothing to abate his doubts.

Charon crawled up the stairs using his hands and knees to peek out into the streets. The ghoul's intuition had been more than correct, the streets swarmed with supermutants. The vault girl had mentioned she'd dealt with a single one in the tunnels, but it was nothing like the warzone out in the ruins.

He signaled her forward with a flick of his fingers. Seven, he signaled after counting the mutants. The girl furled her brow at his fingers, making sure she was reading it right. The ghoul pointed to an overhang with decent cover across the way. He placed a finger over his lips.

The girl was shaking visibly, but nodded. She copied Charon's motions, centering her feet under her body for balance before taking the rest of the stairs, rifle in hand.

They crossed the square low to the ground and quiet. The girl's boot caught on a chunk of concrete and she stumbled, but recovered and made it to a pillar.

"What was that?"

Charon cursed. Footsteps echoed up the corridor under the lip of the building. The girl peeked out and saw the mutant coming closer and ducked back, but Charon turned and aimed for the eyes. As the thing's body hit the ground, the rest of the mutants began to shout and loose rounds in their direction. The ghoul rounded his pillar and aimed rounds into the fray, running out into the plaza behind other cover, drawing attention.

"Oh holy hell." The girl peeked quickly again, terrified of catching a bullet. Finally, she raised her gun and aimed for the nearest supermutant.

Charon leveled one with his shotgun only moments before it would have lined its sights up on the girl. She struck them in shoulders and thighs and everything but vital areas for the first few, and soon ran for any bit of cover she could find.

"Get down." Charon pulled her arm to get her head behind the edge of the huge chunk of concrete they were crouched behind. A round hit the edge, sending dust and bits of rock scattering by.

"One more round," she muttered. Her hands were shaking as she lined up another shot and loosed it too soon. The ghoul grabbed the girl by the neck of her vest and pulled her into the relative safety of a nearby preservation shelter so they could reload, laying cover fire as they went.

She grasped him around the waist from behind. "Holy fuck, they're everywhere. I can't... please... no more. We can stay here, right. Just right here?"

"Reload," Charon said.

Her hands gripped him tighter. Her face pressed against his ribcage. "Please."

The ghoul shoved her back, and he looked over his shoulder to see shock on the vault girl's face. "I said reload."

She did as he said, seeming to have come to her senses. She ran a hand over her face, and slapped her cheek a few times. "Yeah, right," she muttered. "Yeah. Okay."

Charon placed his ear against the door, then looked back at the girl. "Ready?"

Two rounds hit the side of the shelter with a deafening sound, denting in the metal.

She pressed her hand to her forehead, then wiped at her cheek. "As much as I'll ever be."


	13. Book One: XII

**XII**

xxx

_Concentrate. Sounds of creaking, metallic ricochets. The sound of home. Of safety. Deep breath. Home._

xxx

"...got him... fucking shit, my god... I did it..." Charon heard, seemingly from far away.

He loosed only two rounds on the nearest mutant before the rest turned tail. He strained to see what had gotten their attention before more shots erupted from across the plaza and the few remaining mutants returned fire briefly before falling under waves of assault rifle rounds.

"Clear!"

A pack of fully-armored soldiers came from the alley nearby and scanned the area before spotting Charon and the vault girl.

"What the fuck are you doing so far into the city, civie?" a female voice called to the vault girl, before raising her rifle once more. "...the fuck?"

"Hey, hey!" the vault girl shouted back, letting the rifle strap slide down her arm so she could raise her hands. "We're friendly, the both of us."

"Is that a ghoul?"

"Yeah, he's a hired guard. What are you doing?"

The Brotherhood woman looked around and waved them into the alley. "Look, just get the fuck in here before more of them come though." As Charon and his employer followed her down the side-street, she continued, her voice sounding tinny through the helmet. "Sentinel Sarah Lyons. We're trying to hold the outpost. Been under attack on and off since late last night. I swear these freaks are multiplying or something." She stopped next to a soldier who'd been dragged back and propped against the wall. "And it doesn't make my job much easier when I have civies wandering up to knock on my door in the middle of it."

"I was just trying to get to the radio station," the girl said, but Lyons was already checking the fallen recruit.

"Fuck." The Sentinel pulled the holotag from the dead man's neck and stuffed it into her waist pouch. "Come on, men. Civies, you can follow behind but do not get in our way."

The vault girl shot a worried look in Charon's direction, but simply gripped her rifle and followed the Brotherhood troops.

She slipped behind a concrete column and peeked around. One of the mutants fired a round that kicked up dirt and dust when it struck the wall.

"One in the doorway, two in the windows," Lyons said, ducking out for a brief moment.

The vault girl knelt and leveled her rifle, firing two quick shots at the mutant in the second story window, striking its shoulder on the second.

The lot of them pushed the mutants back through the ruins enough to breach the doorway, the girl and the ghoul trailing behind. Charon helped her stuff her rifle back into its holster and she pulled her pistol.

"Hold it with both hands," he said, his eyes scanning their surroundings for danger.

When one of the giants rounded the corner, aiming for the sentinel, the vault girl fired four shots in succession at it, striking it through the eye on one of them through sheer luck. Lyons looked back to give her a nod and proceeded on.

The plaza was swarmed, and echoed with gunfire from countless mutants and Brotherhood soldiers. The one-oh-one girl aimed this way and that as Charon chose his shots. He kept her back behind the wall while the soldiers pressed on into the fray. Only when the last supermutant had fallen did they emerge.

"This had better be worthwhile," the girl said as they walked through the square toward the GNR building. "I am certainly not cut out for this." She looked as if she might faint.

* * *

_And, once again, dear readers, if you are anxious for updates and haven't followed or bookmarked my tumblr (link in bio) I urge you to do so. I post about what and when I'm writing and updating (sneak peaks, anyone?), links to my kinkmeme fills, random extra writings, and complain about writer's block._

_Let me know if you have any ideas for 'bonus' content for it. Like behind-the-scenes or something._


	14. Book One: XIII

_Unreal City,_

_Under the brown fog of a winter dawn,_

_A crowd flowed over London Bridge, so many,_

_I had not thought death had undone so many._

T.S. Eliot – The Waste Land

**XIII**

xxx

_The worst sound you've ever heard. Every day, a worse one._

xxx

Charon examined one of the fallen. Sarah Lyons knelt to pull the holotag from the paladin's body.

"Guessing the Fat-Man's not up for grabs?" the ghoul said to the sentinel, but just then out of a side-street a huge, terrible sound erupted.

One of the Brotherhood troops was leveled by the wreckage, thick steel armor offering little protection under the force of the car that tumbled out of the side-street.

The vault girl let out a strangled scream and retreated far back into the broken crag of the building, behind rubble and a rusted old car. She held her pistol but was too frozen with fear to use the thing.

Charon holstered his shotgun and pulled the Fat-Man onto his shoulder, loading it with a nearby mini-nuke. Nearby, the soldiers unloaded their clips into the beast. It reared back and swung at a paladin, but they dodged back and escaped the blow.

Charon depressed the launcher and the nuke struck the thing in the ribs, the impact and the explosion rending it near in two, and incinerating a large portion of the flesh. Only when it lay still did the vault girl emerge from her hiding place.

The ghoul pulled the launcher from his shoulder and offered it to the sentinel.

"Shit, keep it," Lyons muttered.

Charon looked back at the vault girl. She was shaking, but after a moment, parted her lips to speak. "I sure as hell can't carry it." The ghoul shrugged and handed the launcher to the Sentinel. Another paladin took the weapon from her when she called him over, then she wandered off, looking for the initiate who had been killed.

Sarah Lyons popped the seal on her helmet with a hiss, then dropped it by her feet. "Fucking hell, Reddin."

The force of the impact had crushed the chest plate of the initiate's armor nearly all the way to the back. The seal had been damaged and her helmet knocked off, and blood leaked from her mouth.

The woman cursed and knelt by her initiate.

"I'm sorry," the vault girl said.

"She knew the danger." Lyons shook her head. "Go ahead inside," she said, extending a hand toward the building.

The vault girl opened her mouth to speak, then closed it. She turned away and headed for the door.

"Look relieved," Charon said as they walked. "You survived."

The girl wiped at her nose and frowned. "You look ecstatic." She shoved her finger into her ear and rubbed it. "My ears are ringing."

They were buzzed in, and they made their way up a staircase to the second floor.

Once the two passed through the doorway, the girl's back hit the frame as her legs gave out. Her breath seemed to have left her and she clutched her chest as she labored to inhale. "Never been so close to one of them," she said, sinking down the wall. "Never so many – so gigantic."

Charon gazed down at the girl, waiting for her to catch her breath. "It gets easier."

"Or maybe you get more numb to it?" The girl swallowed hard and wiped the tears from under her eyes. After a deep breath, she pulled herself off the floor and headed up the stairway.


	15. Book One: XIV

**XIV**

xxx

_I am valuable out here. At first that was some solace. The one thing I keep thinking, is 'valuable' means something different than indispensable or liked._

xxx

"Is your toaster really broken?" the girl asked, not too long after their introduction.

Three Dog stared blankly at her for a moment. "What...?"

"You said your toaster was 'on the fritz' when you were on the radio last night."

"Oh. Well, yeah, but it's been like that for God knows how long." He thumbed toward it absentmindedly. "Just a joke, right?"

She wandered over to it almost before he was done talking and pulled out the screws holding the cover in place, setting them carefully on the table beside herself. Her brow tightened as she held the toaster close to her face, meticulous in examining the composition. She pulled some tools from her bag and, within a few minutes, she had tweaked a few internal components and replaced the cover.

"I think that'll do it," she said.

Three Dog studied her for a moment, then grinned. "I think there might be something you can help me with."

The girl frowned. "Actually, I'd very much appreciate it if you could tell me what you know about my father's whereabouts. I've been led to believe you met him."

"Oh, I've met him, alright," Three Dog said. "Stand up guy, that dad of yours." He sat. "Thing is, I'm in need of someone with certain skills. Electrical wiring, that type of thing. And unfortunately, I can't let you pass on through with that information until you do me a favor."

The vault girl rubbed her eyes. "What is it you need exactly?"

Once they'd hashed out the details, and she'd reluctantly agreed to try, the vault girl and Charon took their leave through the back of the building, having been assured it would lead to the southbound tunnels.

The one-oh-one girl pressed a hand to her stomach as they walked, a empty growl twisting in her gut. She cursed her under and dug into her bag for food. She clutched a single snack in her hand, turning it over, the plastic wrapping making a dull crinkle sound as she squeezed it. "It's the only thing I have left for now."

Charon nodded. "Underworld's not far."


	16. Book One: XV

**XV**

xxx

_Legs aching. One step, then another. Just a little while longer, then rest. Do it for him._

xxx

Their return to Underworld was tense, but uneventful. Though the vault girl was worried they'd stirred up too much trouble to be let back, no one seemed to act as if anything was amiss. What was once The Ninth Circle was now a bunkhouse. No one argued when they took up a bunk in the corner.

"So what do you make of this?" the girl asked, pulling off her vest and packing it away in her bag. Charon just shrugged so she continued. "I know there's a ton of mutants out on the mall, but there's a chance we can sneak through, right?" She was quiet for a time. "You're the expert here. I'd appreciate your opinion."

"That bastard's crazy," Charon said. "The Science Museum is packed with those fuckers."

"More?" The vault girl blanched. "There's fucking _more_?"

Charon unbuckled the plate from his shoulder. "There's always fucking more."

The vault girl pressed her eyes shut hard, took a shuddering breath and sighed, then said, "Let's get something to eat and some sleep."


	17. Book One: XVI

**XVI**

xxx

_Not happening. Through the pain, push harder. This isn't happening. It isn't. _

xxx

It was chaos from the moment they left the door at the Science Museum. The vault girl had been stronger than she looked, hefting the weight of the dish, but struggled to move swiftly. Charon watched the trenches as they ran, and the mutants caught on quicker than he would have liked. The girl's face was turning red under her burden, the Virgo dish strapped to her back like a big fuck-off target for the mutants roaming the mall.

He held off on firing his weapon until it was absolutely necessary, but it wasn't long before he could see them swarming from their bunkers. He loosed two shots at one to drive it under cover, but another nearby fired a round that ricocheted off the concrete rubble behind them. Still more emerged and came for them, though some were soon distracted by far off gunfire near the monument.

The vault girl cried out and fell, catching herself on a knee and pushing her hand on the ground to try and stand once more. After a few lumbering paces, she grabbed her side. "It's hot," she said.

"What?" Charon said, his eyes focused on the nearest mutant. It was too loud with the constant gunfire. He leveled his gun and loosed a round into the thing. It was only when it fell did he take a moment to glance back.

"It's hot," she repeated, then pulled her hand from her side to look at the blood that had poured through her fingers. Her eyes were clouded. "Hurts so bad."

Charon turned back to fire more rounds at the next mutant approaching. He grabbed the girl's arm with his free hand and pulled her along. "Run!"

She stumbled as far and fast as she could, bent under the weight of the dish.

It was clear from far off that one of the Brotherhood guards had been killed, the seal at the neck of his armor perforated by a burst of minigun fire. The other still loosed rounds into the din stirred up by the pair.

The girl called out in a rasping voice for him to open the monument gate. Her footfalls were uneven and Charon kept grabbing her arm and yanking her forward when she fell behind his long stride. He wanted her to sprint, but she loped under the weight of the dish and the shock of the pain.

"Open the gate!" she said again, but the remaining Brotherhood guard slumped to the ground under heavy fire. "Fuck! Fuck, fuck, fuck."

Charon pulled an assault rifle from one of the paladins' hands and sprayed rounds at the mob of mutants who dipped and dodged for cover, allowing just enough time for the girl to punch in the gate code and slip between the opening panels.

She was shaking and bloody when she input the code to shut the gate behind them. She pulled the dish from her back, and collapsed on the ground.

Her face was a startling white and covered in flecks of dark blood. She looked up at Charon with an expression of fear like he'd never seen in her, and she clutched at the wound in her side, trying desperately to stem the flow of blood.

Almost like he was on auto pilot, Charon pulled the lacings of the leather vest she had on and threw it to the side before pulling her shirt up over the wound. He handled her like a rag doll, rolling her to either side to check the damage. The bullet had gone through clean and probably hadn't hit any organs, but she was pale and in shock from blood loss, and that wasn't even saying anything for infection.

When the stimpack pierced her side, the vault girl cried out and arched away from his touch. She passed out altogether when he poured whiskey over the wound to sterilize it, the burning pain in her side erupting into full white-hot fire before everything went black.

Next the young woman knew, she was lying on a mattress at the top of the monument. Strange, she thought. Most of the pain was gone. "Never been..." she mumbled. "Never been... shot... before." She swallowed hard. "It fucking hurts." There was a bandage wound tight around her abdomen and two empty stimpacks next to her on the ground. Charon sat nearby. "How long...?"

"A few hours," he said.

The girl sat up but her head swam from the drugs coursing through her.

"Lay down," Charon said. "You're on a lot of morphine."

She didn't want to listen to him, but once her head hit the mattress, fell straight to sleep again despite herself.


	18. Book One: XVII

_Those who have crossed_

_With direct eyes, to death's other Kingdom_

_Remember us – if at all – not as lost_

_Violent souls, but only_

_As the hollow men_

_The stuffed men._

T.S. Eliot – The Hollow Men

xxx

**XVII**

xxx

_Just dream it all away, right? That works right? Just more nightmares..._

xxx

The vault girl woke at sunrise, feeling very weak and as if the world were spinning. The light patter of rain was the only thing she took in for a moment, the scent and the moisture in the air. Her heart seized when she heard movement from just behind her, and when she turned, Charon was propped up in the corner, his knees drawn up to his chest, eyes closed. The sudden movement roused him – he didn't start, simply opened his eyes and looked down at her.

She cleared her throat, finding it dry and hard to speak. "How long have you been sleeping?"

The ghoul leaned over, looking out at the darkened sky. His voice was quiet when he spoke. "Not more than a few hours," he said. "Was up most of the night." Charon cleared his throat. "You've been in and out for more than a day now."

She looked all hell, skin as sallow as a glass of milk and eyes set into dark sockets. But she was alive for now.

"Thank you." The girl propped herself up on her elbows, her head swimming as she did so. "For saving my life I mean."

Charon shifted uncomfortably. "Don't get all grateful yet. It's not looking good."

The girl's brow furled at his words, and after a moment, she pulled up her shirt to see the bandage. "What's wrong?"

The ghoul stared.

"What's wrong?" she repeated.

"It's turning black."

The girl was silent for a time, staring up at the broken ceiling. "What's the situation look like at the base?"

"We're too far up to shoot accurately from here, and there's no way to get them from the ground without opening the gates." He shook his head. "Last I counted, five supermutants not far outside the gate, two wielding miniguns. It'd be suicide."

"Well, fuck me running," she muttered. "Underworld's doors fifty yards off, and we hardly stand a chance at making it."

The ghoul stretched his legs out. "There's a radio at the base, but I got no answer."

The girl didn't seem to hear, and she was quiet for many minutes. "How much of the morphine did you use?"

"Most of it."

"Go in my bag," she said, her voice hoarse. "I need a lighter, my wire cutters, some of that booze, and more bandages."

Charon looked her up and down before doing as she asked.

The vault girl propped herself up on her elbows. "Run the blades through the flame for a few minutes, then soak it in the alcohol. I have a mug in the bag if you need it." Her eyes were clouded and drifted from side to side as she talked. She kept shaking her head to clear it.

Charon held the whiskey bottle up, still half full. He filled the mug halfway once he'd fished it out, then set to holding the lighter flame over the blades of the wire cutter. He looked up at her as he waited. "Are you seriously going to have me do what I think you're asking?"

The girl wouldn't meet his eyes. She nodded a single slow nod.

"My father was the vault surgeon," she said quietly. "Not many people around so Jonas and I were the assistants by proxy."

"Jonas?"

The girl frowned. "He... No one."

She was pale, and looked like she might be ill. "I'm not great with blood. I know what to do and all." She sighed. "It's easier to tell myself that the body is just a big, intricate fleshy machine. I'm better with machines."

Charon closed the lighter, then placed the tool in the whiskey.

The vault girl gnawed at her lip for a moment. "I think I have a tongue-depressor in with the gauze. Looks like a flat wooden stick. Can you get that?"

He rifled through the bag. "What am I gonna have to do?" he asked while he looked.

"The dead tissue feeds bacteria. You have to cut out all the black and purple tissue, down to where it bleeds. Once you get to bleeding tissue, stop."

He handed her the tongue-depressor. "Do you want the morphine?"

She shook her head. "After. I have to stay awake enough to see it, at least." The girl took a deep breath. Her hands were shaking. "First, you'll get all the bandages off, then douse with the whiskey from the mug. Cut all the dead tissue out. Pack the gauze inside and wrap it up."

"Inside?"

She nodded. "Can't let it close up if there's any risk of infection inside. Just seals it in."

The girl groaned when he peeled away the layers of gauze that stuck painfully to her wound with dried blood and pus. The edges of the puckered hole were indeed blackening, as he said, and it stunk. She grimaced at the sight, but pointed out exactly what she needed him to do and put the depressor between her teeth.

When Charon poured the alcohol on the wound in her abdomen, the vault girl curled and arched in pain. She turned her head to the side, struggling to turn her whole body over, dry-heaving. The ghoul pulled her back, and stuck the stick back between her teeth. The first snip with the cutters drew a shriek from her lips.

"Give me the fucking morphine," she said, spitting the depressor out, and swatting at his thigh. "Please – fuck – it's too bad."

He stuck her with the needle and continued to clip at the wound as she relaxed into the numbness.


End file.
